Opportunity knocks for Africa

Could a UK-EU divorce work in Africa’s favour? Sanne Wass investigates.

From the outset, experts were quick to label Africa as the unexpected victim of Brexit.

Peter Worthington, a senior economist at Barclays Africa, for one, warned in a research note of Brexit’s damaging impact on Africa’s burgeoning development. A slump in demand for African exports could lead to slower growth and wider current account deficits, he forecast. And heightened uncertainty and increased risk aversion would likely increase financing costs and shrink capital flows into the continent.

Today, more than a year into Brexit negotiations, the first signs are beginning to show that the UK’s decision to leave the European bloc is indeed being felt far beyond its own shores: uncertainty around the future business environment has put a brake on investment appetite, which is being felt particularly in Africa, where the UK is a large investor, and the pound’s plunge has hit British demand for imported goods.

But looking at the long-term prospects for Africa in a post-Brexit world, the story, whilst complex, also hints at new opportunities.

Tearing up old trade deals

For African firms, perhaps the most urgent issue for those exporting to the UK is of the uncertainty around tariffs and quotas that they will face after Brexit.

Today, most African countries enjoy preferential access to the EU market for their exports under a myriad of trade agreements – all of which the UK will soon cease to be part of.

Certain schemes are, however, expected to continue after Brexit, such as the preferential access to the UK market for the least developed countries (LDCs), at least if the British government keeps its promise. In its whitepaper on future UK trade policy, released in October, the government says it is committed to establishing a UK-specific “unilateral trade preferences scheme to support economic and sustainable development in developing countries”, which would essentially see it roll over the everything but arms (EBA) scheme and generalised scheme of preferences (GSP) to English law (see fact box).

These two arrangements can easily be replicated because they are one-way measures that are compatible with WTO rules.

The future for Africa’s non-LDCs, countries like Kenya, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritius and South Africa, on the other hand, is more uncertain. Some of them currently benefit from so-called economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with the EU, treaties that will have to be renegotiated with the UK after Brexit. Although the UK government in its whitepaper says its first priority is to “deliver continuity” in its trading agreements with developing countries, which includes aiming “to maintain the preferential access of non-LDC developing countries” and seeking “to replicate existing EPAs”, the renegotiation of new trade accords with Africa could be a complicated task.

First of all, African EPAs will likely be low on the UK’s to-do list when the country begins the renegotiations of more than 100 trade agreements around the world after Brexit. Then comes the challenge that these renegotiations are likely to be a cumbersome and lengthy process.

To illustrate this complexity, take the Southern African Development Community EPA as an example. In an article about future UK-Southern Africa relations, Peg Murray-Evans, a research associate at the University of York, points to a range of factors that will make the replication of the current EPA an intricate task. Among the various challenges, she highlights the varying levels of these countries’ dependence on the UK market as a potential bump in the road: the UK’s share of Botswana’s global exports was 13.5% between 2013 and 2016, for example, whereas this figure was only 0.1% for Lesotho.

“This means that some members of the group may feel a more urgent need to secure access to the UK market than others,” she writes.

This uncertainty around the future of the EPAs could be devastating for some African economies. Until a replacement arrangement is in place, it would mean those African exporters that are not covered by another trade scheme would need to pay full duties, which could price some of them out of the UK market.

“It’s only a few countries in Africa that have EPAs, but these are terribly important,” says Edwin Laurent, director of the Ramphal Institute, a not-for-profit organisation under King’s College London which researches issues of concern to the Commonwealth, and the former head of trade at the Commonwealth Secretariat. “That is the area of trade where there is the most immediate danger. If nothing is done, there could be a serious damage to Africa-UK trade.”

Most vulnerable to these duties, he adds, are those products that face tough competition from other countries in the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP), such as sugar, beef and veal.

“Trade would not take place without preferences,” Laurent says about Africa-UK trade in these sectors. “In the case of sugar, for instance, Brazil is the dominant exporter, and most competitive – so Swaziland and Mauritius would not be able to compete.”

Bananas, too, face some heavy competition. Without preferential access to the UK market, Laurent adds, countries like Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon and Ghana would be outcompeted by Ecuador, the world’s largest exporter of the fruit.

It means that African exporters will not only be interested to learn what tariffs they themselves will face after Brexit – they will also closely follow the tariffs their competitors in other ACP countries become subject to.

“If the UK chose to extend unilateral preferences to all middle-income countries, including agricultural market leaders like Brazil, then beef producers in Botswana and Namibia would lose their preferential margin and it is unlikely they would be able to compete in the UK market,” Murray-Evans cites as an example.

Better deals for Africa

Whether or not Africans even want the EPAs replicated is another question entirely.

“The reality is that the EU has been negotiating the EPAs with Africa for probably a decade now, and the fact is they haven’t concluded,” says Edward George, head of group research at the pan-African bank Ecobank, referring to a process that was started back in 2000 with the so-called Cotonou agreement. “The problem is that the partnership agreements offered by the EU were viewed by many African markets as invalid and not really in their interest.”

Experts have long suggested that the EU’s EPAs with Africa could be damaging for the African signatories in the long run, as the agreements force them to gradually open 80% of their markets to European imports. This could flood domestic markets with European goods, endangering existing indigenous industries. Meanwhile, many of the countries involved already have guaranteed duty and quota-free access to the EU under the EBA.

Some now hope that Brexit could lead to better trade deals for Africa.

“We expect to be able to strike an even better deal with the UK,” says Jane Ngige, CEO of the Kenya Flower Council, an association for floriculture growers and exporters in Kenya. “Given our historical engagement with the UK, we think it will be a friendlier discussion than those with the EU have been. We’d be looking for better policies than we have with the EU at the moment, but we are alert to the fact that we have to sit down and discuss with the UK.”

Ngige refers to the UK as a “significant trade partner”: it takes more than 25% of Kenya’s total volumes of flowers.

This trade is currently carried out under the EU-East African Community EPA. Ngige notes that while Brexit creates huge unpredictability and anxiety for Kenyan flower exporters, the prospect of tariffs doesn’t necessarily mean that business will be interrupted.

“When we have had issues with the EPA in the past, most companies were able to negotiate how they were going to deal with the tariffs, by sharing the pain, or by adding value to their products,” she says.

Africa’s agriculture sector could also find new opportunities, should their governments manage to negotiate more favourable trade treaties with the UK. So says Lodewyk Meyer, a Johannesburg-based banking and finance partner at Hogan Lovells.

“It’s very difficult for African exporters to compete with Europe because of barriers and because of the EU support that the farming community gets,” he says. “So the lessening of those barriers could prove to be very positive for the African agricultural sector.”

The UK could, for instance, decide to remove some of the non-tariff barriers that African exporters currently face, such as the strict EU food production rules, and instead adopt its own regulatory food standards and environmental safety protocols.

The EU’s strict controls in relation to the fungal infection ‘citrus black spot’, for example, has been seen by South African citrus exporters as a controversial protectionist measure.

“The South African citrus exporters have often accused the EU of using these strict conditions as a form of protection, especially as EU countries import from Spain, for instance, which is getting more favourable terms. There is now potential for a level playing field,” Meyer says.

The UK could also decide to lower certain tariffs, says Paul Goodison, an independent consultant with over 30 years of experience in monitoring and analysing EU policy developments in the agro-food sector. This would be relevant in areas where the EU maintains high tariffs, but where the UK has no domestic production, such as bananas.

While there is hope that changes will boost Africa’s exports to the UK, there’s also the understanding that favourable trade treaties could improve the amount of trade finance available to support this activity, explains Meyer.

“Having strong treaties may be an interesting derisking tool in the context of African trade finance. It could be more favourable for a trade finance transaction to be funded out of London if there is a strong treaty network,” he says. “If trade between the UK importer and the African exporter is governed by a treaty then there is more legal certainty. You can look to your UK importer as a source of credit and the source of repayment of, for instance, facilities that you make available to an African exporter.”

Forced to find new markets

Exactly how the divorce will be handled by the UK is still highly speculative at this point. Yet there are early signs that the UK government is keen to strengthen its trade relations with Africa.

At Hogan Lovells, Meyer senses a growing effort from the UK’s export credit agency, UK Export Finance (UKEF), to boost UK trade projects outside of the EU, including Africa, as a result of the Brexit vote.

“UKEF towards the end of last year announced support for the new airport financing in Uganda, which shows commitment,” he says, referring to UKEF’s €270mn direct lending facility for the construction of a new airport in the Kabale region. The deal, signed in December 2017, is the UKEF’s largest-ever loan to an African government.

“We’ve seen them on other transactions, in West Africa for instance, where we’ve not necessarily seen them in the past. So certainly we have seen an uptick in the talk around how UKEF can assist UK exporters into Africa,” he continues. “Initially I think we all had a knee-jerk reaction and thought that the impact of Brexit is that the UK is going to be much more inward looking. But it seems that it’s actually quite the opposite.”

His comments are echoed by George at Ecobank, who expects that more UK firms will start to look to African markets for exporting opportunities.

“The one undeniable conclusion of the Brexit vote, whether you like it or not, is that British companies need to do more business with countries that are not in the EU. It’s just a simple, undeniable fact. And so for Africa, that’s very good,” he says.

George acknowledges that Brexit’s short-term impact on British demand for overseas goods has been tough for many African exporters. “If you have countries that have frequently been exporting to the UK, and suddenly the pound is 12 or 15% less valuable, you might find that there are less exports that you can make to the UK. That might hurt. If you were very competitive beforehand, you’re not as competitive now,” he says.

But in the medium to long term, he adds, Brexit is a “huge opportunity for Africa”.

“Now UK firms have got a gun to their head: go out and get some African deals. And so, what I hope is, with our presence here in the UK, and other institutions like us, we will reach out to the British businesses saying: ‘Let us help you find those opportunities, those markets that you are comfortable with,” he ends.

Triangular supply chains

Whatever eventual deal comes out of the discussions between the EU27 and the UK will be of vital importance for supply chains with roots in Africa, in particular in the agro-food sector. Brexit could leave African exporters will additional logistical challenges and costs should the EU and UK not agree on a free trade agreement.

Much of the fruit, horticulture and floriculture imported to the UK from Africa is routed via third-party countries in the EU, such as the Netherlands and Belgium. As such, the future of UK customs and security checks on consignments imported through channel ports will not only become a concern for fresh produce middle-men in mainland Europe, but African suppliers too.

Paul Goodison, an independent consultant with over 30 years of experience in monitoring and analysing EU policy developments in the agro-food sector, explains the impact on African flower exports:

“All the major European flower auctions are in the Netherlands. So a lot of ACP exports go first to the Netherlands, and then on to the UK. If there is a hard Brexit in the agro-food sector, which is highly likely, those supply chains will be profoundly disrupted. It’s not just a question of tariffs, it’s a question of port congestion and the fact that the delivery of these products is time sensitive.”

This makes a country like Kenya highly vulnerable to trade disruption – regardless of whether or not the country manages to reconsolidate its duty-free access to UK markets. Goodison’s research shows that in 2015 the Netherlands accounted for 77% of UK cut flower imports. Some 71% of Kenya’s cut flower exports to the EU were destined for Dutch ports of entry, compared to a mere 17% exported directly to the UK. This suggests substantial onward trade from the Netherlands to the UK. The trend is similar for other products, such as mangoes and onions.

Sometimes this rerouting is linked to adding value, such as in the case of cocoa. Goodison notes that 97% of cocoa beans imported to the UK were sourced from Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire in 2015. Yet, the majority of UK cocoa paste, cocoa butter and cocoa powder came from EU states – countries with no domestic production of the raw material, which import, process and then trade the goods across the entire region.

On the flipside, however, is the chance for larger exporters such as Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire to move up the value chain by expanding their production and export of cocoa butter and cocoa paste to the UK market.

Kenya too could be a winner, Goodison explains: “If EU export supply chains to the UK are disrupted, and the supply chains through EU27 are disrupted, then countries like Kenya may be able to identify areas where they can develop direct exports to the UK of higher value products. Particularly if the migration dimension of Brexit leads to labour shortages in the horticulture sector, then you may find that Kenya can export more pre-packaged, bar-coded to retailer requirements of horticulture products, because the labour costs in Kenya are much lower than they will be in the UK,” he says.

Fact box: Trade schemes under which Sub-Saharan African countries trade with the EU

The everything but arms (EBA) scheme is a unilateral EU measure that offers duty-free, quota-free access on all goods other than arms and ammunition for the world’s 49 least developed countries. 32 of them are in Africa.

The generalised scheme of preferences (GSP) covers lower-middle income countries. It offers a mix of reductions and full removal of tariffs on about two-thirds of tariff lines. According to the European Commission, two African countries (Nigeria and Congo-Brazzaville) currently benefit under the scheme.

The EU has been negotiating bilateral economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with groups of developing countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP), which allow participants to gain duty-free, quota-free access to the EU market in return for gradual and partial opening of their own markets. These include the EU’s agreement with the Eastern African Community (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda) and with countries in the Southern African Development Community (Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland). 12 Sub-Saharan countries are currently beneficiaries of this scheme, with 15 signatories awaiting regional adoption, according to the European Commission.

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This Privacy Policy outlines the information we may collect about you in relation to your use of our websites, events, related publications and services (“personal data”) and how we may use that personal data. It also outlines the methods by which we and our service providers may (subject to necessary consents) monitor your online behaviour to deliver customised advertisements, marketing materials and other tailored services. This Privacy Policy also tells you how you can verify the accuracy of your personal data and how you can request that we delete or update it.

This Privacy Policy applies to all websites operated by Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd (as indicated on the relevant website).

This privacy statement does not cover the activities of third parties, and you should consult those third-party sites’ privacy policies for information on how your data is used by them.

Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent by e-mail to privacy@gtreview.com or by writing to Data Protection Officer at, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd, 4 Hillgate Place, London, SW12 9ER, United Kingdom. Alternatively, you can telephone our London headquarters at +44 (0) 20 8673 9666.

Who are we?

Established in 2002 and with offices in London and Singapore, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd is the world’s leading trade and trade finance media company, offering information, news, events and services for companies and individuals involved in global trade.

Our principal business activities are:

Business-to-Business financial publishing. We provide a range of products and services focused on international commodities, export, supply chain and trade finance markets including magazines, newsletters, electronic information and data

Organisers of seminars, conferences, training courses and exhibitions for the finance industry

Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd is a company registered in the United Kingdom with company number 4407327 | VAT Registration: 799 1585 59

Data Protection Policy

This Data Protection Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.

Why do we collect information from you?

Our primary goal in collecting personal data from you is to give you an enjoyable customised experience whilst allowing us to provide services and features that will meet your needs.
We collect certain personal data from you, which you give to us when using our Site and/or registering or subscribing for our products and services. However, we also give you the option to access our Sites’ home pages without subscribing or registering or disclosing your personal data.

We also collect certain personal data from other group companies to whom you have given information through their websites (including, by way of example, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd and subsidiaries, in accordance with the purposes listed below). Should we discover that any such personal data has been delivered to any of the Sites, we will remove that information as soon as possible.

Why this policy exists

This Data Protection Policy ensures Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd:

Complies with data protection law and follow good practice

Protects the rights of staff, customers and partners

Is open about how it stores and processes individuals’ data

pretexts itself from the risk of a data breach

We may change this Policy from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By using our website, you’re agreeing to be bound by this Policy.

Data protection law

The Data Protection Act 1998 described how organisations – including Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd – must collect, handle and store personal information. These rules apply regardless of whether data is stored electronically, on paper or on other materials. To comply with the law, personal information collected must be stored safely, not disclosed unlawfully and used fairly.

The Data Protection Act is underpinned by eight important principles. These say that personal data must:

Be processed fairly and lawfully

Be obtained only for specific, lawful purposes

Be adequate, relevant and not excessive

Be accurate and kept up to date

Not be held for any longer than necessary

Processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects

Be protected in appropriate ways

Not be transferred outside the European Economic Area (EEA), unless that country of territory also ensures an adequate level of protection

How do we collect information from you?

We obtain information about you when you use our website, for example, when you contact us about products and services, when you register for an event, register to receive eNewsletters, subscribe or register for a trial to our GTR magazine/website.

Types of Personal Data Held and its Use

1. Customer Services and Administration

On some Sites, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd collects personal data such as your name, job title, department, company, e-mail, phone, work and/or home address, in order to register you for access to certain content, subscriptions and events. In addition, we may also store information including IP address and page analytics, including information regarding what pages are accessed, by whom and when.

This information is used to administer and deliver to you the products and/or services you have requested, to operate our Sites efficiently and improve our service to you, and to retain records of our business transactions and communications. By using the Sites and submitting personal information through the registration process you are agreeing that we may collect, hold, process and use your information (including personal information) for the purpose of providing you with the Site services and developing our business, which shall include (without limitation) the purposes described in the below paragraphs.

2. Monitoring use of our Sites

Where, as part of our Site services, we enable you to post information or materials on our Site, we may access and monitor any information which you upload or input, including in any password-protected sections. Subject to any necessary consents, we also monitor and/or record the different Sites you visit and actions taken on those Sites, e.g. content viewed or searched for. If you are a registered user (e.g. a subscriber or taking a trial), when you log on, this places a cookie on your machine. This enables your access to content and services that

are not publicly available. Once you are logged on, the actions you take – for example, viewing an article – will be recorded (subject to any necessary consents). We may use technology or a service provider to do this for us. This information may be used for one or more of the following purposes:

to fulfil our obligations to you;

to improve the efficiency, quality and design of our Sites and services;

to see which articles, features and services are most read and used

to track compliance with our terms and conditions of use, e.g. to ensure that you are acting within the scope of your user licence;

for advertising purposes, although the information used for these purposes does not identify you personally. Please see paragraph 5 below for more details;

to protect or comply with our legal rights and obligations; and

to enable our journalists to contact and interact with you online in connection with any content you may post to our Sites.

Please see paragraph 5 below for more information on cookies and similar technologies and a link to a page where you can turn them on or off.

3. Marketing

Some of your personal data collected under paragraphs 1 and 2 above may be used by us to contact you by e-mail, telephone and/or post for sending information or promotional material on our products and/or services and/or those of our other group companies. We give you the opportunity to opt-out of receiving marketing communications. Further detail can be found on the applicable Site and in the footer of each marketing communication sent by us, our group companies or service providers. See also “Consents and opt-outs” section below. We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

4. Profiling

We may analyse your personal information to create a profile of your interests and preferences so that we can contact you with information relevant to you.

5. Cookies and similar technologies

All our Sites use cookies and similar technical tools to collect information about your access to the Site and the services we provide.

What is a cookie?

When you enter some sites, your computer will be issued with a cookie. Cookies are text files that identify your computer to servers. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used.

Many sites do this whenever a user visits their site in order to track traffic flows, recording those areas of the site that have been visited by the computer in question, and for how long.

Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. Selecting not to receive means that certain personalised services Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd offers cannot then be provided to that user.

Why do we use cookies?

Log In – Where we provide log in mechanisms for site users a cookie is created at login and for the duration of the session. Each cookie contains a unique reference number only (no personal information) which is used to confirm you are authorised.

Analytics – To allow us to keep track of traffic to our website we use cookies. The cookies simply tell us if you have previously visited our website so we can get more accurate figures for New vs Returning visitors.

We may use cookies to:

remember that you have used the Site before; this means we can identify the number of unique visitors we receive to different parts of the Site. This allows us to make sure we have enough capacity for the number of users that we get and make sure that the Site runs fast enough

remember your login session so you can move from one page to another within the Site;

store your preferences or your user name and password so that you do not need to input these details every time you visit the Site;

customise elements of the layout and/or content of the pages of Site for you;

record activity on our Sites so that we understand how you use our Sites enabling us to better tailor our content, services and marketing to your needs;

collect statistical information about how you use the Site so that we can improve the Site; and

gather information about the pages on the Site that you visit, and other information about other websites that you visit, so as to place you in a “market segment”. This information is only collected by reference to the IP address that you are using, but does include information about the county and city you are in, together with the name of your internet service provider.

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies but, if you prefer, you can change your browser to prevent that, or to notify you each time a cookie is set. You can also learn more about cookies in general by visiting www.allaboutcookies.org which includes additional useful information on cookies and how to block cookies using different types of browser. Please note however, that by blocking, deleting or turning off cookies used on the Site you may not be able to take full advantage of the Site.

6. E-mail tracking

E-mail tracking is a method for monitoring the e-mail delivery to those subscribers who have opted-in to receive marketing e-mails from GTR, including GTR Africa, GTR Asia, GTR Americas, GTR Europe, GTR Mena, GTR eNews, Third party e-mails and GTR Ventures.

Why do we track e-mails?

So that we can better understand our users’ needs, we track responses, subscription behaviour and engagement to our e-mails – for example, to see which links are the most popular in newsletters. They enable us to understand the consumers journey through metrics including open rate, click-through rate, bounces and unsubscribes. Any other purposes for which Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd wishes to use your personal data will be notified to you and your personal data will not be used for any such purpose without obtaining your prior consent.

How do you track GTR eNewsletters?

To do this, we use pixel GIFs, also known as “pixel tags” – these are small image files that are placed within the body of our e-mail messages. When that image is downloaded from our web servers, the e-mail is recorded as being opened. By using some form of digitally time-stamped record to reveal the exact time and date that an e-mail was received or opened, as well the IP address of the recipient.

7. Consents and opt-outs

You can give your consent to opt-out of all or any particular uses of your data as indicated above by:

Indicating at the point on the relevant Site where personal data is collected

Informing us by e-mail, post or phone

Updating your preferences on the applicable Site or eNewsletter (unsubscribe and preference options are available in the footer of each eNewsletter)

To turn cookies and similar technologies on and off, see the information in paragraph 5 above.
Any questions regarding consents and opt-outs should be sent by e-mail to privacy@gtreview.com or by writing to Data Protection Officer at, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd, 4 Hillgate Place, London, SW12 9ER, United Kingdom. Alternatively, you can telephone our London headquarters at +44 (0) 20 8673 9666.

8. Disclosures

Information collected at one Site may be shared between Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd and other group companies for the purposes listed above.

We may transfer, sell or assign any of the information described in this policy to third parties as a result of a sale, merger, consolidation, change of control, transfer of assets or reorganisation of our business.

9. Public forums, message boards and blogs

Some of our Sites may have a message board, blogs or other facilities for user generated content available and users can participate in these facilities. Any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should always be careful when deciding to disclose your personal information.

10. Data outside the EEA

Services on the Internet are accessible globally so collection and transmission of personal data is not always limited to one country. Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd may transfer your personal data, for the above-listed purposes to other third parties, which may be located outside the European Economic Area and/or with a different level of personal data protection. However, when conducting transfers, we take all necessary steps to ensure that your data is treated reasonably, securely and in accordance with this Privacy Statement.

Who has access to your information?

Confidentiality and Security of Your Personal Data

We are committed to keeping the data you provide us secure and will take reasonable precautions to protect your personal data from loss, misuse or alteration.

However, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our Site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features described above to try to prevent unauthorised access.

We have implemented information security policies, rules and technical measures to protect the personal data that we have under our control from:

unauthorised access

improper use or disclosure

unauthorised modification

unlawful destruction or accidental loss

All our employees, contractors and data processors (i.e. those who process your personal data on our behalf, for the purposes listed above), who have access to, and are associated with the processing of your personal data, are obliged to keep the information confidential and not use it for any other purpose than to carry out the services they are performing for us.

Responsibilities

Everyone who works for or with Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd has some responsibility for ensuring data is collected, stored and handled appropriately. Each team handling personal data must ensure that it is handled and processed in line with this policy and data protection principles. However, the following people have key areas of responsibility.
The board of directors is ultimately responsible for ensuring that Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd meets its legal obligations.

Name of Data Controller

The Data Controller is Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd. Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd is subject to the UK Data Protection Act 1998 and is registered in the UK with the Information Commissioner`s Office.

How to access, update and erase your personal information

If you wish to know whether we are keeping personal data about you, or if you have an enquiry about our privacy policy or your personal data held by us, in relation to any of the Sites, you can contact the Data Protection Officer via:

Upon request, we will provide you with a readable copy of the personal data which we keep about you. We may require proof of your identity and may charge a small fee (not exceeding the statutory maximum fee that can be charged) to cover administration and postage.

Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd allows you to challenge the data that we hold about you and, where appropriate in accordance with applicable laws, you may have your personal information:

erased

rectified or amended

completed

Disclosing data for other reasons

In certain circumstances, the Data Protection Act allows personal data to be disclosed to law enforcement agencies without the consent of the data subject. Under these circumstances, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd, will disclose requested data. However, the Data Controller will ensure the request is legitimate, seeking assistance from the board and from the company’s legal advisors where necessary.

Changes to this Privacy Statement

We will occasionally update this Privacy Statement to reflect new legislation or industry practice, group company changes and customer feedback. We encourage you to review this Privacy Statement periodically to be informed of how we are protecting your personal data.

Providing information

Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd aims to ensure that individuals are aware that their data is being processed, and that they understand.

How the data is being used

How to exercise their rights

To this end, the company has a privacy statement, setting out how data relating to individuals is used by the company. This is available on request and available on the company’s website.

Review of this policy

We keep this Policy under regular review. This Privacy Statement was last updated in April 2018.